The present invention relates to copolycondensates of a tertiary organosiloxane amine with one or more other siloxane components. In another aspect, the invention relates to methods of preparing and using these new copolycondensates. The copolycondensates can be present with the same chemical composition in various forms, e.g. as so-called block copolymers, statistical copolymers or so-called mixed copolymers. The new polymer products are insoluble in water and organic solvents and are specially suitable as metal adsorbent and as adsorbents for organic molecules.
Insoluble organosiloxane amines are known from German patent 31 20 214. These known products are distinguished by especially good chemical and physical properties, especially in comparison to analogous systems based on organic polymers or also on specially modified, inorganic polymer systems. These known organosiloxane amines can be used as a weakly basic ion exchanger, as an adsorbent, as an active-substance carrier, as a carrier of heterogenized, homogeneous catalysts or as a heterogeneous base in base-catalyzed reactions.
The matrix of these known products can be produced in a quasi-tailored manner. For example in relation to an aspect which could be important for a use as catalytic carrier, the density of functional groups can be regulated by the inclusion of cross-linking agents containing silicon, titanium, zirconium and aluminum. These products can thus be modified chemically in many ways in order to make them compatible with the multiple applications. However, this modifying capability refers only to the inclusion of chemically non-functional groupings because these polymers exhibit a secondary or a tertiary amine grouping as the sole functionality.
However, in the meantime it has proven to be advantageous in various applications of these polysiloxanes to combine different functional groups in one polymer matrix. Effects can be produced by this combination which are greater than the sum of the actions of the individual components (synergism). At the same time, further possibilities are presented by the different possibilities of the arrangement of the differing functionalities in the polymer system, optionally in combination with cross-linking agents. On the basis of the especially advantageous material properties of the tertiary organosiloxane amines described in German patent 31 20 214 and of the favorable polycondensation behavior of the corresponding monomers, the problem of developing copolycondensates in which one component is a tertiary amino siloxane has been considered.